By: Staff Writer
June 30, 2026
More than 2,000 rescue workers from 27 countries have been deployed to Venezuela to locate people trapped under the rubble following the twin earthquakes on Wednesday, in a deployment supported and coordinated by the United Nations.
The rescuers come from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and the Dominican Republic; as well as from Germany, Czechia, Spain, the United States, France, Italy, Jordan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Qatar, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Syria, Switzerland and Türkiye.
The United Nations has pegged the death toll to 1,430 people and another 3,238 having been injured.
Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s acting president, said she is in no position to refuse aid from any country, whether it friend of foe.
While rescue operations continue, a preliminary satellite assessment by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that the earthquakes caused direct physical damage of about $6.7 billion, equivalent to about six per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
The estimate, calculated using the Rapid Digital Analysis tool known as RAPIDA, places the range of losses between $4.7 billion and $8.7 billion. This figure includes damage to homes and economic assets, but does not account for damage to infrastructure, disruption of economic activity, or long-term reconstruction costs.
The national health system has been activated to respond to the emergency, with public and private health networks mobilized to provide immediate care to injured people.
Health services are under increasing pressure due to the growing demand for emergency and trauma care, while disruptions to electricity, water, sanitation, transport, and telecommunications pose additional challenges to the continuity of care, hospital operations, emergency referrals, and ambulance services.
Preliminary exposure analyses indicate that 91 emergency hospitals are located in areas affected by Intensity VI or above, including 20 hospitals exposed to Intensity VII or higher, primarily in Carabobo and Yaracuy.
These estimates are intended to guide response planning and do not represent confirmed damage.
The earthquakes, of magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, shook northern Venezuela and were felt in the capital Caracas and in the states of La Guaira, Carabobo, Miranda, Yaracuy and Aragua.
According to UNDP , some 8.6 million people were exposed to moderate to severe shaking, including approximately 2.1 million who experienced the strongest tremors. The assessment also estimates that 1.7 million structures were located in the affected areas.